The present invention relates to vehicle cowl components bridging a gap between a vehicle's hood and front windshield, and more specifically relates to a cowl component with an integrally formed seal configured to sealingly engage a rear edge of a hood assembly in a manner blocking water and sound from passing from the engine component toward the windshield.
Vehicles include a cowl component bridging a gap between a vehicle's hood and front windshield and configured to reduce flow of water, sound, and emissions from the engine compartment toward the windshield. Traditionally, the cowl component has a cross-vehicle seal attached to its front edge that is located to abuttingly, sealingly engage a rear edge of a hood assembly when the hood assembly is closed. In one known prior art cowl product (FIG. 5), a cross-car bulb seal 80 is attached to a rear edge of the cowl 81 and extends upward to a location where a ridge 82 on the rear edge of an inner panel of the hood 83 will abuttingly compress the bulb seal 80 when the hood 83 is closed. However, this prior art sealing method is limited by cost and performance. For example, conventional bulb seals are costly to install since they must be bonded in a secondary operation to the underlying cowl component completely along their entire length, which is not easy given their lack of length-wise strength and lack of torsional strength, and their tendency to deform when gripped. Further, they can be expensive to inventory and difficult to manage in production systems.
In another prior art cowl product (FIG. 6), a cross-car J-shaped seal 90 is attached to a rear edge of the cowl 91 and includes an upwardly-extending curved single wall configured to abuttingly engage a ridge 92 on the rear edge of the hood 93 when the hood 93 is closed. The illustrated J-shaped seal may be separately attached in a secondary operation, or potentially can be bonded to the cowl in the second step of a two-shot molding operation. Two-shot wiper seals can be less costly since they eliminate secondary operations, but traditionally they sacrifice performance because of their curved single wall structure which does not always tightly, sealingly engage the hood's rear edge. Further, the single wall of the J-shaped seal 90 provides only one-wall-thick barrier to reduce flow of water, sound, and emissions.
An improved cowl component is desired that minimizes cost but also provides optimal sealing engagement against the hood's rear edge to reduce flow of water, sound, and emissions.